On 3rd July, the Government published its 10 Year Health Plan. Policy and Engagement Manager Emma Lagerstedt explores what this means for health data in the NHS.
Unveiled by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting at a community centre in London, Fit For the Future: 10 Year Health Plan is set to reform the NHS in England over the next decade. Framed by stubbornly high waiting lists and record-low public confidence, the Prime Minister said the NHS must “reform or die”.
At its core, the Plan promises three shifts: from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention, with data and technology central to delivering these changes.
Health data in the 10-year Plan Plan and data – in brief
- A Single Patient Record (SPR) is to be rolled out across all health and care providers by 2028, available through the NHS App, offering a “single, secure and authoritative account” of every person’s health.
- AI tools, including ambient voice technology and a new NHS App assistant aim to reduce admin time and enhance patient care.
- Genomic data and predictive analytics will be integrated into the SPR, giving patients a view of their individual health risks to support early detection and prevention.
- The plan commits to empowering patients with greater control over their care and their health data via the NHS App.
- New legislation will reform the legal framework governing the use of health data for research and planning – though detail is lacking on what is set to change.
Single Patient Records to be made accessible via the NHS App
As previously announced, the Government will implement a Single Patient Record (SPR), which will join up all patient data across all different health and care providers across England into one complete record. Subject to legislative timing, SPRs will be available by 2028. The change aims to provide health and care staff with a complete picture of a patient’s history, improving care and reducing the time spent by clinicians accessing records.
Just as importantly, the introduction of an SPR rightly recognises that – in the words of the Plan - access to one’s own health data is a right, not a privilege. Via the NHS App, patients are set to have full access to view data about their NHS appointments, vaccines, medicines and other important metrics such as blood pressure and heart rate, all in one place. Plans are in place to expand the amount of data available in the SPR over time, including real-time data from wearables and smart devices, with patients in charge of deciding whether to share this data with the healthcare professionals treating them.
New legislation is to be introduced to enshrine the right for patients to access their own SPR by default, and to place a duty on every health and care provider to make information recorded about patients available to them. This is a welcome move given previous difficulties compelling providers to make data available to patients via the App.
Research and planning, and the Health Data Research Service
Beyond providing care, de-identified data from the SPR will be made available to approved users via the previously announced Health Data Research Service (HDRS) to drive innovation and deliver scientific breakthroughs. There are plans to work with members of the public on developing agreements to ensure that the NHS receives value back from providing access to data for research, but the paper stresses that making de-identified data available for research will “never mean compromising on patient privacy”.
As part of a suite of measures to speed up clinical trials, clinical trial recruitment will be integrated with the SPR to enable patients to be proactively contacted about trials that might benefit them based on their health data, implementing a recommendation from the Lord O’Shaughnessy review into clinical trials.
In order to facilitate the use of routinely collected patient data for secondary purposes – research, planning and population health – the Government is set to reform the legal framework for said use cases, though it is unclear what these reforms will look like.
AI
The Plan identifies five “big bets” to drive healthcare reform through technological innovation, focused on areas where the NHS can be world-leading, particularly data-driven technologies like AI, genomics and predictive analytics. The aim is to embed many of these technologies into routine use, becoming “business as usual”.
AI will be implemented throughout the health service to improve productivity and increase the administrative burden for staff through the use of innovations like ambient scribes, which listen to patient consultations and provide a transcript, reducing the time spent on paperwork and enabling clinicians to spend more time with patients. The long-term vision is for AI to be “seamlessly integrated” into patient care by 2035, starting with the roll-out of validated AI diagnostic tools and AI scribes in 2027.
For patients, a new tool called “My NHS GP” will be available in the NHS App to provide advice for patients needing non-urgent care. The tool will use AI algorithms to provide personalised guidance based on the contents of patients’ records.
Genomics and predictive analytics
Genomics and predictive analytics are set to drive improvements in predictive and preventative care. A new “genomics population health service” will be created by the end of the decade to help prevent a person from developing a condition, support early detection and enable personalised treatment. It will build on the success of existing programmes like the NHS Genomic Medicine Service by implementing universal newborn genomic testing and genomic testing for people with cancer and rare diseases. By integrating genomic data and predictive analytics into the SPR, patients will be able to access a personalised account of their health risks and get tailored support. Patients will be given the choice of whether or not to participate in genomic testing and to control who can access their genomic data and results.
Understanding Patient Data’s response
Understanding Patient Data welcomes the ambition of the 10 Year Health Plan in relation to patient choice and voice and its recognition of the NHS’s unique health datasets as a national asset.
We have previously written about the potential benefits of a Single Patient Record across health and care and are pleased to see strong commitments to empowering patients—through access, control and transparency—as these are essential for trust. We’ve previously argued that choice and voice must be at the heart of data-driven health reform, and this Plan echoes that intent.
As our research has shown, public understanding of health data remains low. Planned changes to data use and governance must be clearly communicated, and tailored support should reflect different people’s needs. Co-creating new App functionality with the public is an important step in the right direction.
However, the Plan leaves open questions about delivery and governance. There’s no roadmap for implementation, limited detail on data governance, and proposals to reform legal frameworks for secondary data use lack specificity. These must be developed in consultation with the public and align with existing expectations about data use.
As we enter a new phase of health data reform, UPD will continue to support open, inclusive conversations that put people’s rights and expectations at the centre.
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